Timetable Set for Rules on Wheelchair-Accessible Taxicabs

Amid concerns that New York City was not moving swiftly enough to make more taxis accessible to the disabled, a federal judge in Manhattan set a timetable on Thursday for the publication of new accessibility rules and a public hearing that is required before they are formally adopted.

The judge, George B. Daniels, gave lawyers for the city additional time to consult with medallion owners on how to make the changes, which were outlined in the settlement of a class-action lawsuit, but also reminded them that the primary issue before the court involved civil rights rather than financial arrangements.

“You have to decide whether or not you have a settlement agreement that commits you to implement this plan,” Judge Daniels told a lawyer for the city who had said that more time was required to address complexities.

Years of contentious litigation came to an end in late November with the settlement of a lawsuit brought by people who said the city was in violation of the federal Americans With Disabilities Act because only a small number of yellow medallion taxis were accessible to wheelchair users.

The city, which has more than 13,000 such cabs, agreed to adopt regulations requiring that half of them be accessible to people with disabilities within six years. The settlement also called for the city to “commence the regulatory process” and publish proposed rules within 30 days. In December, the city issued a proposed regulation and scheduled a hearing for Jan. 23 to receive testimony on the proposed rules.

But the hearing was postponed after Mayor Bill de Blasio took office in January. The plaintiffs in the case described that as a breach of the agreement and wrote to Judge Daniels that it might be necessary “to reinstate discovery and the litigation.”

On Wednesday night, Mr. de Blasio’s press secretary, Phil Walzak, said, “The mayor is fully committed to the agreement of making 50 percent of the taxi fleet wheelchair-accessible by 2020.” He added that conversations with advocates for the disabled and the taxi industry were “beginning in earnest.”

In court on Thursday, a lawyer for the city, Michelle Goldberg-Cahn, told Judge Daniels that the city needed to consult with “many different industry stakeholders” and wanted to write new rules that “would have a greater likelihood of adoption” by the Taxi and Limousine Commission, but she provided no specifics of how they would differ from the ones drafted in December.

A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Sidney Wolinsky, replied that some in the taxi industry were “pressuring the city” and “looking for a funding mechanism to make rich medallion owners richer.” But after Ms. Kahn said that the city was “unequivocally” committed to the terms of the settlement, he agreed to a schedule that called for publication of new rules by the end of March, with a public hearing to take place by the end of April.

At one point a lawyer representing the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade, an association of yellow-taxi fleets that had been trying since last year to intervene in the case, told Judge Daniels that his client’s concerns were not being heard.

Judge Daniels told the lawyer, Richard D. Emery, that he would have the chance later to object to parts of the city’s plan that he might deem unfair, but that he could not intervene in the case at this stage.

“It is not appropriate at this point to give the taxi industry some veto or to let the industry step in and stop the settlement,” he said. “A settlement between the parties does not raise issues to be litigated; it ends issues.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A20 of the New York edition with the headline: Timetable Set for Rules on Access to Taxicabs. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe